Chapter 3 - MY HUSBAND’S FIRST LIE
I had believed Ethan worked in hospital administration.
That was how he explained his access to everything.
His office.
His security clearance.
His constant calls from physicians and board members.
But Grace showed me something I had never seen.
An internal authorization screen.
ETHAN MERCER.
EXECUTIVE BIOLOGICAL ARCHIVE ACCESS.
LEVEL FIVE.
“What is a biological archive?”
I asked.
Grace glanced toward Luka.
“A database Mercer Medical publicly claims was destroyed twenty years ago.”
She lowered her voice.
“It contains DNA profiles from maternity cases, private fertility procedures, closed adoptions, and genetic research programs.”
“Most of those patients never knew their information was being retained.”
My skin crawled.
“And Emma’s blood matched something?”
Grace nodded.
“The system generated an automatic alert.”
“What kind?”
She opened the flash drive on the hospital laptop.
One line appeared.
GENETIC RELATIONSHIP DETECTED: M-17.
Beneath it was another message.
ACCESS RESTRICTED BY EXECUTIVE OVERRIDE.
My husband’s employee number appeared beside the override.
I stared at the screen.
“M-17 is a person?”
Luka answered.
“Apparently.”
Grace shook her head.
“We never knew.”
“We thought M-17 referred to the seventeenth file.”
“Maybe it referred to both.”
The door handle moved.
Luka closed the laptop immediately.
A security guard spoke from outside.
“Mrs. Mercer, your husband has left the floor.”
I exhaled.
Grace waited until the footsteps disappeared.
Then she removed a folded photograph from her pocket.
It showed a younger version of my father standing beside a woman I recognized from pictures Luka had shown me.
Sofia Moretti.
Between them stood a teenage boy.
He was thin.
His hair was longer.
There were no visible tattoos.
But I knew those eyes.
Luka.
“You knew my father.”
I whispered.
Luka looked at the photograph.
“He saved my life.”
“How?”
“Sofia died three days after taking those records.”
“I wanted revenge.”
“Your father stopped me from doing something that would have put me in prison forever.”
“He told me truth was more useful than rage.”
I stared at him.
That sounded exactly like my father.
Then Grace clicked another folder on the flash drive.
Inside were copies of financial documents.
My name appeared repeatedly.
Transfers.
Authorizations.
Withdrawals.
Some dated back three years.
I had never seen them.
“What is this?”
Grace looked confused.
Luka wasn’t.
“Your trust.”
I laughed bitterly.
“I don’t have a trust.”
Luka turned the laptop toward me.
“Claire.”
“There’s over eleven million dollars attached to your father’s estate.”
My heartbeat stopped.
I looked at the transfer history.
Hundreds of thousands had been removed.
Every transaction had the same authorized manager.
Ethan Mercer.
My husband hadn’t married a woman with no money.
May you like
He had married a woman who didn’t know she had any.
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